Metacritic reviews

Has a droll tone that sets it well above comedy's lowest common denominator. But it also has a bloodlessness that keeps it from being funny very often.

It`s a lamebrained movie, without much sense in its construction.

If it had the guts to be either zany or pointed, it might have been both; instead, it's neither. It's an old copy of Mad magazine that wouldn't have been your favorite even when you were 12. [6 Jan 1986, p.C11]

Here is a satire about government and business corruption that's as empty, corrupt and manipulative as everything it attacks: a frantic, jokeless comedy about selling out, that sells out itself constantly. This is another big, dumb, pointless picture, a "high concept" movie that's all concept and no movie.

Reinhold has a face that is halfway between leading-man handsome and Donald Duck, and a relaxed, drawling confidence with a line -- he seems to float not above the action but on it, like oil on water. And he seems to survive Head Office, a comedy so confused and cowardly it makes television look daring. [4 Jan 1986, p.D4]

Unforgivably bad, painfully unfunny, and downright stupid, HEAD OFFICE tries to do to the corporate world what AIRPLANE did to the airlines. A needle in a haystack would be easier to find than a laugh in this film--which is surprising, considering that the cast includes such names as DeVito, Moranis, Novello, Doyle-Murray, and Shawn.

Head Office has fleetingly funny moments -- Don (Father Guido Sarducci) Novello's attempt to lure women into his limo to listen to boring pop tapes, a Don King rap that's almost as funny as his hair -- but overall, this is one movie that's bankrupt. [7 Jan 1986, p.4]